


That Rhymes with Orange

by Dhobi ki Kutti (dhobikikutti)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-06-18
Updated: 2004-06-18
Packaged: 2017-10-03 17:48:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dhobikikutti/pseuds/Dhobi%20ki%20Kutti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's just that she said to do<br/>something with words and wanting, and that's you."</p><p>Set in season 3 of BtVS.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Rhymes with Orange

**Author's Note:**

> For Mer, inspired by her [pair of sonnets](http://stakebait.livejournal.com/237673.html?thread=3294825&style=mine#t3294825) written by Xander and Giles.

Xander is good at covering up the quiet.

 

He's like peanut butter; he can spread himself over a situation that's sharp and crackly or rough and crumbling, and smooth over the gaps in a chunky way. Plus, he's not sweet, not truly, not really, but not pretending to be either, because no one minds that peanut butter is more nutty and salty and sticky than sweet, and he knows that there is a place in the world for sticky things. Like peanut butter, and duct tape, and jujubes. And him.

 

So he makes sure he fills up his share of the conversation with quips and his share of the awkward pauses with jokes because Buffy has to ask the important questions and Cordelia can cut like paper and Willow has too much reverence for libraries. And the librarian.

 

Giles is never bothered by Willow's babble, pitched as it is in a library-appropriate rating - he responds to it with the same smile that he greets a cup of tea with. Xander doesn't know how to be tea - mature and refined and stimulating and _ necessary_. He's tried being cocoa, but only Willow still drinks slurpy comfort, and even she doesn't want it very often any more. He doesn't think Giles ever needed cocoa.

 

Giles doesn't need much at all, and what he does, Xander can't give to him. He can't swing a staff with a quip that makes Giles sigh and a kick that makes Giles soften in pride. He can't scan a catalogue and reach for the same book and conclusion as Giles, with bubbles of enthusiasm that relax Giles into the cosy-chair comfort of being able to say, 'yes exactly!' He can't even stay sharp and confidant and beautiful so that Giles never tenses, and often smiles wryly, and sometimes, distantly, admires. Most of all that, actually. Xander cannot be beautiful for Giles, or even just fresh and young and graceful, so that his presence is an ornament, not an eyesore.

 

Because the thing with peanut butter is that it can be a mess. And he understands that for someone like Giles - old, responsible, British - it is an unfamiliar, obtrusive, undesired substance. Something that requires a pre-emptive tension in the spine and wrinkle of the eyes and he's seen that look on other people's faces, because apart from picnics and Reeses Pieces and after-school sandwiches, most grownups don't want peanut butter around. And Giles is the last person to be jelly.

 

Giles in his library is like those fancy liquors in polished cabinets that you don't know how to pronounce the name of. Nothing like his father, it seems pertinent to mention, in the same way that WWF wrestlers are nothing like Buffy and Giles, fencing, after school. Giles doesn't need to cover up a stumble with a wisecrack or a fall with buffoonery. Giles can lay sprawled on his back with Buffy's foil wriggling in front of his face and still look ok with not being in charge. Which is really the sneakiest way of being in charge, Xander can see.

 

He sees these things every day, all over again, like eating Krispy Kreme donuts. His awareness of the sugar shock never lessens, never stales. Even though Giles isn't sugar, isn't remotely close to any sort of junk food that Xander can play with, can tease, can be comfortable-without-table-manners with. Giles is an adult - like caviar or sushi or scones - that you dress up for and take seriously. And Xander doesn't know how to do that.

 

All he knows how to do is check out Giles' ass without alerting everyone in the tri-state area about what a sleazebag he is. It's a laughable talent, practised on Willow, honed to perfection in the company of Buffy and Cordelia. Such an immature thing, and he realises this when Buffy complains about the workout Giles puts her through, and Willow wonders what books are in the locked cupboard under the stairs that they're not supposed to know about. He doesn't know how to appreciate Giles properly, the way a man would, or a woman - enjoy vintage Giles, dry humour like wine. He's not even sure he'd like the taste, fizzy fruity things are more fun, and beer, after all, is what the Harris bloodline is bred to, but when Giles walks across the floor, it is like a French menu. He knows he'll get the pronunciation wrong, and he can't distinguish between the spices, but the food smells good, and he is hungry.

 

Fine cuisine is wasted on you, he imagines Ms. Calendar saying, and he hunches in agreement over the book he hasn't been reading. His English assignment is still undone, and they have to go kill something scaly in the sewers in half an hour. Buffy and Willow are arguing about the right way to do it, and he can tell from the curve of Giles' spine that he is anxious and tired, and probably cranky, so he interrupts the conversation with a lame joke about sonnets and follows it up with an offer to make a donut run. When Giles turns around, it is with a decision for the argument, and a solution for the problem, and a request for silence from Xander.

 

Xander is good at covering up the quiet.


End file.
